Many organisations across Europe and beyond are responding to refugees by providing them shelter, advice and support in dealing with authorities, and engaging them in cultural and sport offers. Higher education institutions are also developing initiatives tailored to refugee students and university staff, and have included subjects concerning migration and refugees into teaching and research.

With the Refugees Welcome Map campaign, EUA aims to showcase and document the commitment of higher education institutions and organisations in supporting refugees. EUA is collecting data on their initiatives and activities via a brief survey and presenting them in this interactive map, which will be continuously updated. The initiative began in Europe but is open to institutions and organisations around the world.

By January 2017, EUA Refugees Welcome Map had collected almost 250 initiatives from higher education institutions and related organisations in 31 countries. EUA will use the data to identify common challenges and derive transferable good practice approaches to the long-term sustainable integration of refugees into higher education. This data will be disseminated through the inHERE project as of mid-2017 in a range of materials and training events for university staff.

We are offering you the possibility to put your organisation’s activities on the map by participating in a brief survey, which should take about 10 to 15 minutes to complete.

Why should you contribute to the map?

It will make your initiatives for refugees more visible to other universities and organisations, and also to society at large and policy makers.

It will encourage other higher education institutions and organisations to follow your example and allow exchange of good practice.

It will allow you to receive information about other initiatives, projects and funding opportunities related to the issue.

It can help connect to other initiatives and facilitate partnerships, as it allows you to indicate if you are principally interested in direct exchange and cooperation with individual institutions and organisations (optional).

EUA supports the European Commission’s “Science4Refugees” initiative to help refugee scientists and researchers find suitable jobs. Science4Refugees is accessible to refugees and institutions through the EURAXESS – Researchers in Motion portal, a pan-European initiative providing access to a complete range of information and support services to researchers wishing to find jobs and pursue their research careers in Europe.

The European Students’ Union (ESU) expresses its solidarity with all refugees, asylum-seekers, internally displaced persons (IDPs) and stateless persons around the world that are denied access to education. ESU underlines that refugees and asylum seekers must have access to education in an official statement.

Erasmus+ helping refugees through Higher Education: Supporting the efforts of EU countries to integrate refugees in Europe's education systems and ensure their skills development is an urgent task in the light of the current migration crisis. Many initiatives are already taking place in EU countries, undertaken by universities across the continent. On this site, the European Commission presents and shares a constantly updated number of such initiatives.

EUA calls upon policy makers and higher education institutions in Europe to enable refugee students to gain access to higher education. During its last meeting on 23 October 2015 in Brussels, the EUA Council adopted a statement on refugee students and academics. To learn more about it, please click here.

EUA calls on universities to reassert their commitment to the fundamental values of openness, tolerance and inclusiveness. Fore more information, please click here.

The EUA Webinar “Refugees Welcome Map” will discuss initial findings of the campaign, and will feature initiatives and practices from some of the contributing institutions.